Patrician III Review

Climb the ladder of the Hanseatic League in this deep and satisfying strategy/trading game.

A little more than two years I was sent Patrician II from a German developer, Ascaron, to review for PC Gamer. Trade simulations are typically of minor interest to most players, but this one also threw construction, resource management, career advancement and agreeable graphics into the hopper. As I played, the depth and quality of the title became more and more obvious. Only half-a-page had been assigned to it, however, and there was no more space available. The review of Patrician II ended up as an awkward anomaly, a 90% rating attached to a discussion of just over 250 words. The magazine understandably had to put its efforts into reviewing better-known games, for that's where the interest of the majority of its readers lay; but it still felt at the time rather like explaining the Human Genome Project in a 15 second sound bite for local Action News Five.

Now, we can remedy that. In this review, we'll be taking an in-depth look at the latest release in the Patrician series, paying especial attention to its wealth of gameplay detail. And by the time we finish, I think you'll agree that this title is a must for strategy lovers who prefer their combat using weapons of shrewdness, discernment and greed, rather than iron. What, you don't think bankers and lawyers work for the Dark Side of the Force?

Starting Out

Patrician III is all about the doings of the Hansa, but who the hell were the Hansa, anyway? Let's spend a moment briefly checking out the realworld on which our game is based.

During the 13th century ACE, nationalism in Europe was a nascent concept. Rulers hadn't yet evolved national boundaries, nor developed national myths designed to whip up patriotic feelings that kept citizens in line. The map of much of Western and Central Europe was a patchwork quilt in which a given Duke might own a town here and two others some distance to the north, and a piece of forest of undetermined extent far to the east, with nothing in between. Complex lines of fealty meant that the ruler of a province might hold it under an acknowledgement of allegiance to his own baby son, who in turn could own through a different line of inheritance a tract of countryside in which fealty went the other way.

From out of this mess, the Hansa (or Hanseatic League) evolved: a series of "free" cities (actually ruled by local plutocracies of burghers) in different parts of Northern Europe that might be called proto-capitalist. At this point there still were no banks, no paper money or theory of bimetallism, nor had the Netherlands developed stock and bond markets; in fact, there wasn't a Netherlands. But the Hansa understood an important modern principle better than any of their European contemporaries: wealth translated directly into power, something that would later be the making of such Renaissance superpowers as the Republics of the Netherlands and Venice, and in modern times, Japan. They had many other ideas, some of them quite nasty by modern standards, for gaining riches. (Enough to make Fletcher Pratt, one of America's great historians, refer to the Hansa in distaste as "Movement and monopoly, civilization in terms of creature comfort...intellectually sterile, politically acute, militarily formidable.") But the point is that the Hansa employed cutting edge technologies in the new field of extensive international trade to ruthlessly control its world, and did so with great effectiveness. Its ban could starve a people to their knees. Its favor could turn a military defeat into victory. It funded invasions, and created or toppled rulers with ease. You can play to be nothing but a rich trader by the end of Patrician, respected in your home port, but the ambitious merchant will settle for nothing less than the role of alderman, elected leader of the entire Hanseatic League.

Touring the City

You start Patrician III in one of twelve potential Hanseatic cities. (There are another dozen cities available for various purposes, particularly trade, but they remain outside the Hansa. You can't begin a career in any of them.) Each is rated individually for its size, population, and ship facilities, as well as its requirements in twenty different resource categories that are subdivided into food items, raw materials, consumer good and luxury goods. Public businesses meet minimum thresholds for important resources in most cities, but everything else, both export and import, is handled through ships owned by traders such as yourself.

There are many buildings for interaction. The dock cranes bring up a trade menu that lets you buy and sell merchandise, moving it to and from your trading office, your ships, and the market hall. The market hall itself supplies information about the city's production and consumption levels, while clicking on the harbor master's lighthouse reveals all the ships currently docked in port. Repair docks do just what you'd think they do, while shipyards let you order, repair, upgrade or name a ship. (As you might expect, ships usually take several months to build. The more business a shipyard possesses, however, the more experienced they gradually become and the more locals they hire to work. This can speed up shipbuilding orders dramatically: yet another example of the level of thought put into Patrician.)

In the market square you can organize a celebration for the citizens, reveling in increases of goodwill, while the local church accepts donations for feeding the poor, improving the interior, or upgrading the physical structure. There's a bath house, where you can bribe local officials to support your run for mayor, or your acquittal for various crimes like piracy or smuggling that of course you never committed, and wouldn't dream of doing so in a thousand years.